Speaking in the FIA press conference he said: “I think we expected worse conditions here in terms of how long the tyres last. I think this morning and this afternoon was quite useful and helped us understand what to do in the race on Sunday. So far I think it is positive.

“Still we cannot race with one stop only. I think we have to come in a couple of times so ultimately we will find out on Sunday if the track improves or not as it is also something we have seen in the test.”

Nick Heidfeld added: “From testing in the winter we thought the soft tyres would only last one lap. I did my quickest lap here today on the second lap; the third lap wasn?óÔé¼Ôäót too bad either so this hopefully makes qualifying a bit less of a problem, because we will see more pit stops.”

Heidfeld said the need to keep sets of tyres for the race would make managing tyres in qualifying more challenging: “We see that the lap time difference between hard and soft tyres is quite big, huge – at least, compared to last year.

“That means that maybe only the very quick cars like the Red Bull may be able to use the hard tyres and save some soft tyres, but most other cars will already have to use soft tyres in Q1 to get through.

“That means that you only have two sets left for later on which you might also have to use in the race, so it makes things very different, quite interesting and complicated.”

36 comments on ‘We were expecting tyres to be worse” – Vettel

Tyres not falling off too fast. A solid speed difference between the compounds. Having it a bit unpredictable for everyone. Making the tactics in Quallifying challenging. And let the drivers react rightly to changes in the tyre.

Well, even Mark Webber emphasized that they [drivers] had exactly the same opinion about the Bridgestones last year, but it was totally different on the track. Reason for the difference these days ? The track at Barcelona is very bumpy, whereas Australia has a more smooth surface, rather forgiving the tires, with a low wear rates. There was a difference in the temperatures, too. Expect pretty durable tires in the hot countries.

I just hope that the high tyre wear and big speed difference between tyres do not decrease the amount of ‘exciting’ overtaking maneuvers.I dont want to see one car going past the other only to find out its on a different strategy all together.Overtaking should ‘mean’ something.

If we have a situation where tyre performance is very extreme then we will end up with a situation where yes we will see more passing but we could end up seeing less racing.

To me the thing I love about F1, about Motor Racing in general is the racing. I love watching 2 or more cars fighting for position, The car ahead defending with the car behind trying to find a way past.

I think back to those 2 races at Imola in 2005/2006, Watching Schumacher & Alonso fighting for the win over the final 10+ laps, Schumi all over the back of Alonso in 2005 & the reverse in 2006, I loved it.

I don’t want to see a situation where that sort of great scrap for position is broke up because of the DRS or KERS or because there on different tyre strategies so one is a couple seconds faster than the other on fresher tyres.

In my view everything we have this season is entertainment/unpredictability at the expence of racing.

In a way thats true, However I don’t really think unpredictability should be kind of artificially forced into the mix.

If you have a set of natural circumstances like rain or whatever bringing in some unpredictability then fine, Yet coming up with the DRS, KERS & Pirelli tyres to try & force that I feel takes away a bit from the purity of the Sport/Racing.

As I said the thing I love about this sport is the racing, If you have the DRS, KERS & Pirelli’s taking away from the racing, Breaking up good racing then to me F1 loses a lot of its appeal.

but just because there is an option not to make any stops doesnt mean everyone will take it.

when we had that system up untill the end of 1993 you always had a varierty of options with the different tyre compounds and you often never knew exactly who would do what untill it actually happened.

i dont dislike the pirelli tyres simply because they wear, i dislike them because the entire tyre range wears which forces everyone to make at the very least 2 pit stops.
the soft yres should wear, however the medium and hard tyres should have considerable less wear which allows for the option of a 1-stop and also a no-stop strategy.

if you had the pre-94 setup of multiple compounds with how many stops they wanted to make left totally down to drivers & teams rather than simply down to tyre wear forcing 2+ stops, you would have far less predictability, far more strategy options and far more input from drivers on mid-race strategy changes.

see estoril 1993, schumacher plans 2-stops yet opts to switch compounds and go the rest of the race without making the planned 2nd stop, that got him an unexpected win & gave us a great fight for the win between him & prost in the closing laps.

paul ricard 1990, the 2 leyton house cars go without making any stops while others made 1 or 2 and it gave us an unexpected and intresting final few laps with ivan capelli nearly pulling off a totally unexpected win.

i’ve been following f1 for over 45 years and think its a complete joke that pirelli have made there entire range of tyres like they have and that the regulations surrounding tyre useage is as it is.

The trouble with that the idea of different strategies is that there usually is one optimal strategy and just about all teams and drivers will adopt that.

Then you probably think, but that was the case in 1993 too.

Indeed it was, but then the rules actually allowed different strategies. Nowadays, they HAVE to stop once, use BOTH compounds, they can’t refuel (to actually make more pitstops work) and worst of all … they CAN’T change their strategy based on the qualifying result.